


Sucker Love A Box I Choose

by Alcoholic_Kangaroo



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Human Trafficking, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Underage Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_Kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_Kangaroo
Summary: Just a slight spin-off from My Body's Broken, Yours is Spent  - what if L did keep Near instead of sending him to Wammy's House?
Relationships: L/Near | Nate River
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Sucker Love A Box I Choose

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [My Body's Broken, Yours is Spent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406517) by [Alcoholic_Kangaroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_Kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_Kangaroo). 



> Maybe someday I'll write a non-pedo fic for the fandom. Yeah right. There's no going back once you out yourself dudes. You write something normal and then people feel like you tricked them into reading it. So here's some more child hooker Near instead.

When she brings him his lunch that day, Lila tells Near that L will be returning that evening.

Specifically, she tells him “Your father is coming home tonight.” Then she sets Near’s platter of grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on his squat marble table and exits the room, leaving him to ponder and worry over mild cheddar and bland tomatoes.

None of her statement is technically true. For one, L is not his father. Near has no idea where his biological father is; he probably is unaware he even has a child, but he most assuredly is not coming to this house this evening. That said, she probably assumes, like Meredith, that he is L’s adopted son, which is also technically untrue. Strictly speaking, Near does not exist on any official legal documents.

Then there is the second half of her statement. If L were his father? Well. This isn’t his home.

Not really.

L may own this house and he may sometimes sleep here but he does not live here. He barely keeps any clothes in the closet of the master bedroom and the walls are an uninspired shade of beige that nobody would ever choose on their own. There is no warmth in any room of this house beside Near’s own. No personal touches. Nothing that would indicate this house was not just a model to show off to potential buyers. It’s the sort of house sitcom families live in.

Except for Near’s room. With his posters and dinosaur throw rug and Toy Story bedding. In such contrast to the beige and mauve and creams that dominate the rest of the rooms.

No, the only one who calls this mansion a home is Near.

Even Lila and Meredith switch out who sleeps in the maids’ quarters at night. Taking care of Near is not a job to be taken lightly, according to his so-called-father. L will simply not allow Near to be left alone for a single moment of the day. He also does not allow him to be left alone in the presence of other men. Not even that new teenage boy that Near has not bothered to learn the name of who really is too young and slim to be of any concern. L does not trust men. He knows what men are capable of. He is one.

Near knows what they say behind his back. They call him odd. They say he is strange looking. They gossip about his white hair and his blank eyes. They ask what the point of him living here is. L visits so little and Near does not go out on his own; he does not go to school or to the movies or out biking.

He sits here, mostly. Inside his little room with all the bright colors. Alone. And he plays with his toys.

He is simultaneously the most helpless and most independent child in existence. That’s what they say about him. Not so directly but he knows what they’re trying to say even if they do not.

At eleven-years-old he is utterly incapable of caring for himself in all but the most basic ways. He cannot cook. He cannot draw his own bath. He can dress himself but only because he wears the same clothes every day; if he were forced to choose and match his own clothing he would be utterly lost.

At the same time, once he is bathed and dressed and fed, Near can sit alone in his empty room for hours and hours at a time. In fact, he prefers it this way.

“Good thing the master put in that bidet or we’d be wiping his arse for him,” one of the old maids had commented once, not realizing Near could hear her through the heavy wood door. Near told L about the exchange the next time he visited and within twelve hours she had been let go.

It is not that Near does not know how to do things he just has trouble following through with them. Like drawing his own bath. It is not difficult to figure out which way a faucet turns. But if he were forced to choose when to bathe? He would sit on the ground, playing with his toys, considering getting up for hours until it was far too late to take a bath and he would need to sleep. But if someone was there to fill the tub and then come to call him, telling him it was time to bathe…. well, that was different. The water was there and Near just had to collect his toys and climb inside.

Same for the clothing. When he had first moved in L had filled his closets with a variety of different clothes: jeans, sweaters, t-shirts. Everything a boy could want. But all those colors, all those styles and patterns, they had confused him. The first time he had set out to dress himself, Near had removed all the shirts and set them on his bed and then sat on the chair in the corner, just staring at them, twirling and twirling his hair as he tried to convince himself he needed to stand up and pick out something to wear. Until L had waited for him for so long that he had finally shuffled into the bedroom, his hands in his pockets, and looked at Near, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he pointed at the clothes.

“Do you not like any of them?”

“I don’t know.”

L had been silent for a long minute then he nodded slowly, as if he understood, and even though Near had known the man for less than two days at that point he had realized he did understand. L only ever wears baggy blue jeans and white shirts – mostly with long sleeves.

“Little Nate,” L had murmured, because he had not yet assigned him his true name at that point. The one he put on all the fake certificates he showed to the dentist and the ophthalmologist. “You’ve never been given the chance to choose your own clothes before, have you? It must all be very confusing.”

He nodded, scowling, hating that he was having trouble with something so basic and uncomplicated.

“We’ll get rid of all these,” L said, nodding towards the pile of clothing on the bed. “I’ll have Meredith donate them to a thrift store and we’ll pick out something easy for you to wear instead. Here, I’ll help you for now.”

He had dressed him in a baby blue sweater and a pair of gray flannel sweatpants. Later, the maids had come and emptied out the closet and replaced everything inside with white pajamas. Some of the tops had short sleeves and some of them were made of flannel or fleece instead of cotton but besides that they were all the same.

“Don’t feel like you need to pick what’s _appropriate_ ,” L had explained at the time, stressing the last word. “If you just want to wear the same thing every day then that’s fine. The other options are just in case you feel uncomfortable, alright?”

“Alright.”

Near loves his clothes. He cannot explain why but something about their emptiness is appealing to his sensibilities. They make him feel free. Like he’s a blank page waiting to be written upon.

“Sir,” Lila interrupts him as he’s working on a 3D puzzle of the Eiffel Tower. “I will be leaving now, is there anything you need before I head out?”

“No, Lila, I’m fine,” he assures the woman and there’s that uncomfortable pressure in his stomach he has been waiting to appear all day. “Thank you for your service, as always.”

She bows to him before closing the doors behind her. She’s a young woman, only about nineteen or twenty, Near thinks. L had hired her thinking maybe Near would appreciate having a maid closer to his own age in the house. She has only worked in the house for six months, but she knows the rules.

When L informs the staff that he will be arriving the next day, they stock up the kitchen with sweets. When he calls to say he will be there shortly, they leave.

L does not like having witnesses to his transgressions.

The next time the door opens Near knows it is not Lila or Meredith or that new boy that works in the kitchen. This person does not spread open the double doors, flooding the stuffy little room with fresh air and sunlight. There is nothing so majestic with his entrance. L quietly pushes open just one of the doors and clicks it shut very softly behind him. Near watches the bare feet on the wooden floor and his hands tremble as he attempts to keep them under control.

It has been two years since L brought him home.

Exactly two years, to the day.

And he is still terrified of this man.

“Hello, Near,” he greets him. “Did you miss me?”

He does not reply. L does not care if he replies or not. L is not easily angered. He never gets upset about anything Near does, or doesn’t, do. He is not like the men in that other house, Near’s old home.

Except he is exactly like them.

“Well, I’ve missed you,” L says, as if Near had answered in the negative, which he supposes is what his silence means. Except that’s not true. Not exactly.

Near is terrified of L, but he also adores him.

L is the one who took them from that horrid brothel he had been born in. L is the one who gives him all his toys and puzzles to play with. L is the one who creates his lesson plans each week and grades his work over the computer. L is the one who allows him to stay inside this gilded cage, away from prying eyes and untold responsibility. L, in every way, is his escape.

Except when L is here, then he is once more reminded of his imprisonment. L is the golden bars of the cage, electrified and painful to the touch.

“Did you win?” Near asks, his voice somewhat rough with disuse. He speaks so rarely when L is not around. Little more than yes or no answers to the maids, mostly, because they never ask him anything but yes or no questions. They learned long ago that he was not good at making decisions like what did he want for dinner or was there anything he wanted from the toy store. Instead they would ask him if he pot roast sounded good tonight or did he want them to pick him up that new Marvel action figure that had just been released.

“Yes,” L affirmed. “I won.”

Near nods. L always wins. And he never returns until he has won. Sometimes, Near wishes L wasn’t so good at winning. Maybe if he was less good at it, he would be gone longer. This time he had been gone eleven days. Near wondered if the bad guy was dead. Sometimes L had them executed, depending on what country he is in when he catches them.

The bad guys probably wish L wasn’t so good at his job, too.

Yet Near missed him. He missed having somebody here to talk to. He could talk to the maids, but he can’t _talk_ to the maids. Not the way he talks to L. They do not understand him. They do not understand why he needs to have thirty sets of white pajamas hanging in his closet and why his fruit can never touch his eggs at breakfast.

L understands him. L knows Near better than Near knows himself, sometimes. When Near doesn’t know what he wants for breakfast or what toy he wants to play with in the tub or if he wants long sleeves or short because it’s cold in the morning and warm in the afternoon, L knows.

But L also uses him.

Even though L refers to him as his son to the others, he is in no way a father to Near. Fathers do not own their sons. But L does. L owns him.

Near sits alone in this room, day after day after day, surrounded by stuffed animals and action figures and mechanical trains and knows just like these objects, he is nothing but a toy. He is a plaything for this man before him. He treats Near the same way that Near treats his toys. Gently, so as not to break them, but at the end of the day they are nothing, but objects and he feels no remorse over locking them away in his toy chest for use another day.

He does not know why L brought him here. What was so special about him that he felt the need to bring him to this house? For convenience? That makes little sense considering that L often needs to travel out of his way to return to this house. There are always brothels closer to where he works, there are children more easily accessible to him. And he has not stopped seeking out their company just because he has Near waiting for him at home.

He tells Near about his encounters with them.

“She was twelve,” he told him last time he has visited. “Tall for her age but without any signs of breast development yet. She was so tight…I don’t think she had yet entered her first menstrual cycle. Yet at the same age your mother gave birth to you. It’s funny, how puberty can vary so.”

L did not mention that his mother had died giving birth to him. He did not mention that maybe twelve-year-old girls should not be birthing babies. Or getting pregnant. Or having sex.

For that fact, neither should eleven-year-old boys. But that doesn’t stop L from scooping up Near, bridal style, and carrying him to his private bedroom. Neither does it stop him from mounting him as if he were a hapless ewe. Near closes his eyes and waits for it to be over.

It’s not that bad, he tells himself. He doesn’t have to have sex with multiple men a night any longer. He doesn’t even have to have sex that often, really. Even if L takes him two or three times a night on his visits, they are so infrequent. And he isn’t cruel to him. He doesn’t choke him or hit him or spit at him that he’s a useless whore in his face. He is not overly fat or ugly. He doesn’t crush Near beneath him, making him feel as if he can’t breathe. He doesn’t smell badly. His breath is always pleasant when he kisses Near, if a bit sweet for his own liking.

None of this means Near enjoys this, however. He has no choice over this matter. If L wants to have sex with him there is little Near can do besides let it happen. What could he possibly do to make him stop? Maybe if L loved him. Maybe if L was romantically invested in him like other men are with their lovers. Then maybe it could be different. Maybe then L would care about the pain he causes him.

Near knows L does not love him. Despite the pet names, L does not love him. Dear, darling, sweetheart, lamb, doe. L sprinkles the terms of endearment over him as if they were seasoning. Perhaps L also understands the power of lover. Perhaps he wants Near to love him. Perhaps he believes if Near loved him he could control him. Perhaps that is why he tells him the stories of the others. Does he think Near will feel jealous over those descriptions? Is Near even capable of feeling jealousy?

He doubts it. But he doesn’t know. If you have to love somebody to feel jealous over them then he can not possibly imagine that feeling because there is no love in his heart for his man.

L holds him down by his hands. They’re bony and long-fingered over Near’s own delicate hands, and the fingers entwine and curl around each other so that L’s too-longer fingernails dig into the soft meat of Near’s palm. He knows they are L’s fingernails, not his own, only because the maids are always so diligent about Near’s upkeep. They trim his nails every few days as if he were a prized poodle, applying clear nail polish afterwards to make them shimmer. Near is unsure why the nail polish is needed. He asked, once, and Lila had just told them that it was what their father commanded.

Useless, now. Near can only see his thumbnail, his cheek pressed flat against the comforter. The back of his hand is flushed pink from the pressure of L leaning all his weight into it. The bones ache and not for the first time Near wonders if L will fuck him so hard into the mattress that he will splinter the delicate bones.

L is heavy but only because Near is small. L is not a large man and even though he feels like a tank on Near’s back he never leaves any permanent damage.

Sometimes, Near wishes L was more vocal about his pleasure. He is so quiet it is disconcerting. Besides a slight panting he never expresses any verbal indication of what is happening. Maybe if he was groaning or moaning or huffing then Near would be able to get distracted by the noises but instead, he finds himself getting lost in his own head and becoming hyper fixated on small details, like the thing with his hand. Or maybe the scratchy itch of L’s pubic hair on his upper thighs. Or the way the bed is hitting the wall almost but just not quite at a set rhythm. It never seems to end quick enough.

The worse times are those times when L insists on making Near cum. If Near were more foolish he would think it was because L was a considerate lover. Of course, Near knows it is more likely that L sees it as a challenge. Make his little boy bride orgasm in his mouth or hand so he can feel superior over him. Look at that, the child hates it so and he still can’t help but enjoy it.

He doesn’t bother the majority of the time. When he does it never occurs on the first night of his visit. He is too preoccupied with his own pleasure to care about Near’s and tonight is no different. He bites at Near’s shoulder as he fucks him, not hard, not truly deep enough to hurt. But enough to put Near on edge, to pull a gasp out of him, make his body tense, his hole tighten around the man’s cock inside him. L pants in his ear and then kisses it, wet and sloppy and there’s a tongue lapping at the lobe unpleasantly. He whispers something dirty about Near’s asshole and calls him his darling baby boy.

He pulls out when he cums, telling Near to turn over, which he does obediently. He finishes himself on the boy’s face, leaving a streak of white over the bridge of his nose. Near clenches his eyes shut to avoid the stinging of it in his eye. It reeks of grapes and chlorine.

In some ways, L is capable of being considerate. He knows that Near hates the feeling of cum leaking out of him as he attempts to sleep. It itches and irritates his sensitive skin so. L only ejaculates inside him in the morning, right before they take a bath together. Or if he uses a condom. That happens, sometimes. Not often because L always makes sure to use protection with the children in the other houses and his tests always come back clean. But sometimes he likes to experiment with the different textures and bumps of novelty rubbers and sometimes he just wants to make it last longer.

Normally, though, there is nothing between him and Near. Skin to skin. It has been like that for over a year and a half at this point. Not originally so, no. And definitely not the first time. They had both been far from virgins when L had first brought him home and he had found a discrete, private doctor to run home tests on Near, repeatedly. The first day, then a couple weeks later, then a month later, then the month after that. Until the incubation period of any possible diseases had passed and the tests were still showing up negative.

“What a miracle,” L had murmured, showing Near the final test. He had just fucked Near bareback for the first time and Near had been almost too light-headed from his own painful orgasm to focus his eyes on the paper. “I knew you had bleach running through your veins instead of blood.”

Untrue. Near had been positive, once. There hadn’t been any doctor then. One of the older girls had just looked at Near’s leaking little dick and rolled her eyes, loudly declaring “Gonorrhea.” Then some pills had been shoved at him and within a few days the pus had disappeared.

But that was before L came along. L doesn’t like to hear about the days before then. He never asks Near personal questions about growing up and Near is thankful for that. He doesn’t like to talk about them any more than L likes to hear about them. He doesn’t like to think about them. His earliest memories are of being scared and confused as he was fondled by a collage of different men.

Afterwards, L wipes at Near’s face with one of the baby wipes he always keeps by the bedside. He is very gentle with him. Very tender. He kisses the spot where the cum had lain moments before. Near smells cloying sweetness against his skin.

“I have an appointment very early tomorrow morning,” he tells Near once he’s all tucked in beside him. “I will be gone before you wake but I will be back by lunch. We have an appointment at the Rose Garden. I will lay out your clothes before I leave, please be ready.”

The Rose Garden is a fancy, yet stuffy little restaurant done up in the style of a grandmother’s house only a five-minute drive from here. They serve a variety of fancy teas. L likes taking Near there. The old women in their floral aprons offer a large variety of sweets and L uses it as an excuse to dress him up in frilly dresses with a bonnet covering his too-short-for-a-proper-girl hair. They eat scones with clotted cream and sip tea from the little China cups and it is all very prim and proper. To be perfectly honest, it is not an altogether unpleasant experience. Near really is starting to grow too old to pass as female any longer though. Surely L must notice that?

Near doesn’t say anything about it, however. He just turns onto his side and waits for sleep to overtake him, not at all surprised when he feels one of L’s arms around his waist. The first night L always sleeps like the dead. Near is unsure if L actually sleeps when he is not home.

Near lays there for a long while, unable to sleep even as L snores into his hair, and tries to prepare himself for that strange feeling of waking up alone in this too-large room. His own rooms are built for a child with appropriately sized chairs and an appropriately sized bed and an appropriate placed mirror. When Near tries to look in the small mirror beside the doors in this room he can only see the top of his head. It makes him feel like a doll come to life, trying to survive in a world much too big for him. It’s bearable when L is here. He always gathers Near into his arm and carries him to the bath himself but when he’s not? Then Near has to swing his legs over the side of the bed and see how his feet are still a foot off the floor. It’s always a leap of faith, dropping from this bed. As much as Near hates having L here, he hates waking alone even more.

Except he is not alone.

When he awakes, a boy is standing in front of him. Startled, Near jumps back, his legs already tangled in the sheets. It takes him a moment to recognize the long blond hair and angular blue eyes. He so rarely sees this boy, only glimpses here and there as he comes and goes from the back door to the kitchen to the occasional bathroom trip.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Near informs him, his voice angry still from surprise. He isn’t the most happy morning person as it is and to have been frightened so early is very unpleasant. He wonders, his heart still in his throat, if the boy can smell the semen on his face still. “You know the rules.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the boy apologizes. He bows and his long hair falls around him like a curtain. He has to tuck it back behind his ears when he stands back up. “Neither Lila or Meredith showed up for work this morning and when I went to bring you your breakfast you weren’t there. I was, I was worried, sir, I thought maybe you had decided to sleep in your father’s bed, is all.”

“You’re not supposed to be here when my father is here,” Near says, catching himself a second before he slipped and referred to L by his first name. He tries to pull the sheets up over his chest, but they’re still wrapped around his feet. Near’s hands curl into fists around the fabric. “You know you aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I wasn’t aware he was here,” the boy apologizes again. “I took some time off for finals and was not informed that I should not come in today. I’ll leave immediately.”

Near scowls. He can’t help it. He knows the boy has seen too much. He grovels, in fear of losing his job, but his act is not fooling Near. He sees the disdain playing at the corner of his mouth. The way his eyes keep darting at the pastel blue dress in the armchair before the fireplace. The way he keeps averting his eyes from Near’s nudity. He sees too much. He knows too much. How old is this boy anyway? Sixteen? Seventeen? Near would have preferred if he had been much older than him. This pity, this humiliation, from a boy so near him in age is unbearable. Near fights back the sting of tears at the corner of his eyes. He feels as small and worthless as he had on the bedroom floor of his room back at the brothel.

He should be beyond that now. He is not a free being, but he is still worth more than this boy. He is in a cage, but it is a gilded cage and he is a beloved pet. This boy is a peasant in comparison.

“No,” Near decides, interrupting him, taking the upper hand. He needs to reassert his authority over this servant. “My father will not be home for hours. Please bring me my breakfast here then draw me a bath. Then you may leave.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy bows again. Tucks it behind his ears again. How inconvenient. How stupid is this boy to not simply get a haircut? To deal with something so impractical on a day to day basis.

“Thank you…” Near trails off for a second. He can’t call him “boy,” that’s too demeaning even for him. He always refers to the other maids by their first name. Referring to him by just “servant” is too Dickensian. But admitting he does not know the boy’s name, asking for it, would be an admission of defeat.

“Mihael,” the boy pipes up, saving him from losing face. “My name is Mihael. But I prefer to go by Mello.”

**Author's Note:**

> No, there is no second chapter. I'll let you use your imaginations to figure out where this goes.
> 
> Also, anybody still around from when I was Athena instead of Kangaroo? lulz


End file.
